


A Dark and Snowy Night

by ChattyGremlin



Category: EXO (Band), SHINee, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChattyGremlin/pseuds/ChattyGremlin
Summary: Snowed-in at a rural rental house, the boys discover that a gift from a fan is more dangerous than they ever suspected.
Kudos: 3





	1. Midnight

**8:30 PM**

“Taehyung oppa! Taehyung oppa!”

“Jimin oppa! Will you sign my-”

“Jungkook oppa! Jungkook oppaaa!!!”

“Suga oppa I love you!”

Rap Monster stifles a chuckle and nudges Suga, “You’re doing well with the fans today,” his voice is heavy with mockery. “Smile more, Yoongi. This is a fan-meet. Your face should make the fans happy.”

Min Yoongi sniffs once and wipes his nose on the back of his hand, then squeezes a dollop of hand sanitizer onto his palms and rubs it in. “I have a runny nose and a sore throat. I’m doing the best I can.”

“Jungkook oppa! Is it true you’re dating Minju from The Ark? How could you cheat on me?”

The minutes tick by until one of the managers picks up a mic and walks out on stage to announce the end of the fan-meet. Boos and protests issue from the crowd.

“Gomabseubnida! Thank you all for coming!” Rap Mon shouts into his own mic, throwing one hand up in the air in a peace sign.

The mic thuds lightly as Rap Mon drops it back into its stand, then hurries after the rest of BTS as they traipse backstage.

The sounds of the crowd fade the further Bangtan Sonyeondan ventures into the familiar, behind-the-scenes territory.

J-Hope groans. “Yah, I thought my pockets would burst,” he says, digging his hands into the pockets of his gray suit-pants. His fists come out full of pieces of scented stationery covered with phone numbers and confessions of love. Useless notes are dumped into a trash bin systematically as the boys walk past it toward the back door.

“I got a carrot-plushie,” Jungkook boasts, stuffing the orange googly-eyed creature into his backpack with Jimin watching over his shoulder.

Jimin reaches for something in Jungkook’s bag and pulls out another plushie. “And you got this ugly cat thing.”

“Hyung!” Jungkook snatches the garishly multicolored plushie back and stuffs it away again.

“ _Hyung!_ ” Jimin parodies. “Jungkook-ah, it’s ugly.”

“I kind of like it,” Jungkook replies as Taehyung’s cellphone starts ringing.

Taehyung flips open the phone. “Ah, annyeonghaseyo?” He starts.

“Taehyung, how are you? It’s Baekhyun.”

“Baekhyun?”

Rap Mon shushes the other members of BTS and then gestures them closer, mouthing “He’s talking to Baekhyun!”

“Yes, yes,” Taehyung says, nodding. “I would love to go. Where will you be? …okay, I just have to ask my manager about scheduling. Would you wait a moment? …thank you.”

Taehyung turns around to find a manager hovering over his shoulder.

The manager immediately asks “Baekhyun, Baekhyun from EXO?”

Taehyung nods.

“Then go! You have to go! Ppalli! Ppalli! Oh, and take as many selcas as you can!”

Turning away, Taehyung takes a deep breath and raises the phone to his ear again, but quickly lowers it. “Actually,” he says to his hyungs and Jungkook. “Baekhyun sunbae invited all of us, whoever wants to come.”

“I’m out,” Suga says, sniffling.

“I _would_ go,” Jin says. “But I’m really exhausted. Maybe next time; just make a good impression so that there will be a next time, ne?”

Taehyung nods, then speaks into his phone. “We’ll be there soon, sunbae.”

**9:00 PM**

Asphalt crackles under the tires of BTS’s van as it pulls up to a hole-in-the wall barbecue in downtown Uijongbu. The door of the van slides open and slams to a halt to let the boys out into the parking lot. The sky is dark and starless, and the hour is late. Theoretically there shouldn’t be a sasaeng in sight.

The moment the jingling bells over the door signal Bangtan’s arrival, Baekhyun looks up from his table to stand and wave them over.

“Taehyung,” Baekhyun grins, putting an arm around his hoobae’s shoulders. “It’s good to see you. Have a seat here next to Chanyeol.” The booth Baekhyun reserved is already packed with members of EXO- Chanyeol, Jongin, Kyung Soo, and Xiumin, as well as Taemin from SHINee.

“When Jongin and Taemin decided to go out for drinks after our concert in town, they extended the invitation to the rest of EXO,” Baekhyun explains. “And then I saw your fan-meet in my Facebook feed and thought to invite you and BTS.”

The boys order drinks (no soju for the maknae line), and they set to laughing about anything and everything—stylists, sasaengs, managers, diets, on and on.

“Jongin, you can’t eat that much wasabi. You’ll burn your mouth,” Taemin admonishes.

Regardless, Jongin lifts the eyeball-sized wad of wasabi up to his mouth with two chopsticks.

“Wait, wait!” Jungkook says with a laugh, pulling his backpack up off the floor and unzipping it. “Let me take a picture.” He reaches one hand into the front section of the backpack and then pauses suddenly, his mouth angled and eyebrows raised in question. His hand comes back out covered in a sticky, oozy white goo. “Ew,” he draws the sound out slowly. “What the…”

At this, the gazes all around the table shift to Jungkook.

“What _is_ that?” Jimin asks, mouth agape.

“It smells like,” Jungkook screws up his nose in disgust. “It smells like bad skatefish paste. You know, that smell that comes out of garbage bins in Daegu during the summer.” He pulls his bag open further. “The whole bag is full of this…” Jungkook fishes out his phone and wipes it off with a napkin from the table.

Jongin glances back and forth from Jungkook’s mess to Taemin, still holding the wasabi agilely. To Taemin, he says “Should I just eat it?”

Jungkook looks up once or twice, avoiding eye contact. “I can’t think of anything that would have spilled in here. Um, I should probably go back to the house and get this cleaned,” he stands up and slides out of the booth as he speaks.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Rap Mon asks.

“Aniyo, aniyo, it’s fine,” Jungkook replies. “Joesonghabnida. Sorry to be leaving so soon,” he bows lightly. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Of course,” Baekhyun says. “Go home safely.”

**12:00 AM**

Jungkook drops his backpack on the tile flooring of the second-floor bathroom in their rental house.

“Ugh, this is disgusting,” he says, dumping the contents out into the bathtub. Most of the items inside the bag are in decent condition, but anything made of paper is ruined, and his new plushies are saturated.

He rinses everything off and spreads them out to dry on towels in his room. He sets the clean phone on the nightstand beside his bed and then flops down on the bedspread, sprawling out across the soft fabric.

“But,” Jungkook muses, “how the heck did that stuff get in my bag?”

His thoughts are interrupted by his ringtone. Sleepily sitting up, Jungkook grabs the phone and looks at the caller ID skeptically. “Must be a wrong call,” then taps the screen to deny the call and falls back onto his bed again.

The lights flicker.

The phone rings again.

Alert now, Jungkook looks around at the faltering light fixtures, then notices his phone. He picks it up and answers.

“Annyeonghaseyo?”

Silence.

Jungkook waits for a reply, and almost hangs up when a soft sound comes across the line: purr…

“Andwae, are you serious? Who is this?” Jungkook spouts. When the purring continues without hesitation, Jungkook ends the call and smacks the phone back onto the nightstand.

The purr grows louder.

The restaurant’s speakers finish blaring Look at me Now, by SPEED, and the DJ introduces the next song: My Copycat, by Orange Caramel.

Taehyung’s head bops in time to it as he takes a drink of soju.

“I saw the music video for this song,” Rap Mon says. “It was cool, like a ‘find the difference thing’.”

Taehyung starts to agree when his phone beeps. He sets down his soju glass and checks his messages.

_1 new message from Jeon Jungkook_

Taehyung taps the screen and reads the note, then scrunches up his face in confusion.

“Uh, excuse me for one second, joesonghabnida,” Taehyung says, stepping away from the booth. He flips through his speed-dial list and then taps a name.

_Calling Jeon Jungkook…_

_Call failed_

“What?” Taehyung squinted at the screen. He tried again.

_Calling Jeon Jungkook…_

_Call failed_

_Calling Kim Seokjin…_

_Call failed_

_Calling Min Yoongi…_

_Call failed_

Rap Mon walks over. “Tae, is something wrong?”

“Maybe,” Taehyung says. “I can’t get through to anyone at the house.”

“I’m sure it’s alright,” Rap Mon says. “Why were you calling them?”

Taehyung looks up at Rap Mon for a moment, then goes to his text message history and hands the phone to Rap Mon.

“I got this from Jungkook a minute ago,” Taehyung says, and points to the line of text with one finger: _help_


	2. Silence

**12:30 AM (6 ½ Hours Till Sunrise)**

“You really didn’t have to come with us, sunbaenim,” Rap Mon says as he and the rest of BTS walk up the long snowy driveway to their temporary housing alongside EXO.

Xiumin pipes up, “It’s really no problem, Nam Joon. We’ll just check and make sure everyone’s alright and then we’ll head back to our dorm and leave you here. Ne?” 

Rap Mon sighs. “Gomabseubnida, sunbaenim. I hope this won’t take too much of your time.”

The rental house is an ultra-modern cabin with a tall, peaked roof, little more than a dark outline against a snow-filled, nighttime sky. A single motion-sense light flickers on as they approach. Once they reach the front door, Rap Mon pulls out a key card and slides it through the scanner on the door lock. The door lock immediately explodes, splattering a thick white sludge all over Rap Mon and the two people standing beside him—Jimin and Xiumin.

“What is this stuff?” Xiumin gags.

Jimin scrapes some of the substance off with two fingers and inspects it. “It’s just like that stuff that was in Jungkook’s backpack. Smells about as bad, too.”

Rap Mon apologizes, and to his relief, the door opens. “Let’s go inside and see if we can find a towel or something for this mess.”

Jimin, Rap Mon, and Xiumin wipe off the majority of the goo and drop it onto the snow covering the ground.

Inside, Taehyung pulls off his shoes in the mudroom and takes his phone out of his pocket. Reception is gone. Tucking it away, he calls “Jungkook! Jeon Jungkook! Where are you?”

Everyone crowds into the first room of the house—a small, rectangular room with one window and shelves for bags or shoes and a coat rack in the corner.

“Aish,” D.O. says. “I had two gloves in my pocket. I must have dropped one when we were outside.” He walks over to the door and grasps the handle, but the door doesn’t budge.

“It’s locked,” he says.

“What?” Rap Mon asks. “That can’t be.”

“Jungkook!” Taehyung keeps calling, opening the other door in the room which reveals the long hallway that connects the mudroom to the rest of the house. “Suga hyung? Jin hyung?” The hallway is bereft of anything save for three light fixtures on the ceiling and a door at the other end: largely empty. The hall is dark, and Taehyung flips the light switch to illuminate the space. The lights blink on instantly, and he takes a few steps in.

Suddenly the light fixtures shatter in a show of sparks and glass.

“Taehyung!”

Jimin and J-Hope are immediately by Taehyung’s side as he processes.

“Taehyung, are you alright?” J-Hope asks as Rap Mon and EXO run into the hall.

Jimin wipes a trickle of blood off Taehyung’s cheek. “Yah, you’re bleeding,” he says.

“I’m fine, hyung,” Taehyung says. “Can we keep looking for Jungkook?”

“Yes, of course,” Jimin says.

The boys step around the broken glass on the floor and make their way to the door at the other end of the hall. Taehyung pulls it open and they come into a nook with two doors on the left side (one to a manager’s room, the other to a bathroom) and a stairwell to the second floor on the right. A little further on is the common room—a high-ceilinged rectangular room with several couches and chairs and a coffee table. The right wall of the common room is all glass panels. Straight across is another hallway, equally dark as the first, leading to another manager’s bedroom. To the left is a door to the computer room and a doorway to the kitchen.

“Jimin,” Rap Mon starts, “go into the kitchen and get a broom or something to sweep up the glass.”

“Alright,” Jimin says, taking off to the left for the kitchen.

“Maybe we should look in the bedrooms upstairs?” J-Hope suggests.

“Sure,” Rap Mon says. “We’ll split up. I’ll stay down here and look for Suga hyung. He’s probably in the computer room working on music.”

Rap Mon, Jimin, Kyung Soo, Xiumin, and Chanyeol stay on the first floor, while Taehyung, J-Hope, Jongin, and Taemin go upstairs to look for Jungkook and Jin.

Once Taehyung reaches the top of the stairs, he puts out a hand and feels the wall for the light switch. He flips the switch, but the lights don’t come on. While he puzzles over this, Jongin knocks on the first bedroom door: Jin’s. When silence follows, he tries to open it.

“It’s locked,” he says.

“So is this one,” Taemin says, fidgeting with the second door: J-Hope’s.

Then they try the door to the second-floor bathroom with no greater success.

Taehyung pulls out his phone and uses it as a flashlight to cross the balcony wrapping around the walls of the common room and connecting the two halves of the second floor. As he does so, Jimin calls up to him “We found Yoongi hyung! He didn’t hear us come in because he was wearing headphones.”

“Oh,” Taehyung says. “Good, but I still haven’t found Jungkook-ah or Jin hyung.”

The doors across the balcony are locked too, including the door to Jungkook’s room. Scanning the walls and floor with the light of his phone, Taehyung notices little dark splotches on the floor. When he crouches down to look, he sees it’s a liquid, cold to the touch, and rusty in color.

“Blood?” He whispers. He lifts his phone and can see the trail continues all the way along the balcony.

Taehyung hears a loud crash, then shouts of “Yes! We got the bathroom open!” Standing, Taehyung starts walking back to join the others when the volume level of conversation rises in a panicky way. Taehyung starts running, following the blood trail all the way into the bathroom where J-Hope, Taemin, and Jongin are crowding around something on the floor in the shower. A thin stream of blood slowly finds its way along the slanted floor to the drain.

“…aish,” J-Hope’s voice wavers, strained. “Jungkook, wake up!”

Taehyung steps into the shower and gently pushes Taemin and Jongin aside, expecting the worst. J-Hope is crouched beside Jungkook, who is covered in thin scratches from head to toe, blood seeping around the edges of the rips in his white t-shirt and jeans.

“I think he’s alive,” J-Hope says, swallowing nervously. “Come on, let’s get him downstairs. There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen.”

Jongin puts a hand on J-Hope’s shoulder and gently nudges him away. Taemin kneels down near Jungkook’s head and grabs him under the arms while Jongin takes his feet. They pick him up together and start carefully making their way back down stairs. Taehyung steps forward and helps J-Hope to his feet.

“Gomabseubnida, Taehyung,” J-Hope says. “I think there’s some medical supplies in this mirror-cabinet too. We should grab them.”

Taehyung opens the cabinet for J-Hope, who selects a box of bandages, a tube of ointment, and an ace band. He hands the box to Taehyung and closes the mirror, then walks out, but something holds Taehyung in place a moment longer.

In the mirror, Taehyung can see just a thread of movement on the very edge of the mirror. It’s the faintest tip of something remotely flesh-colored, and it’s doing something in the shower.

He turns and looks through the glass door of the shower to see the little pool of Jungkook’s blood disappearing bit by bit, almost as though it was picked up by the short, quick motions of a paint brush.

Or a tongue.

“Taehyung! Come on!”

“Oh, uh, right,” flustered, Taehyung turns about face and walks toward the exit. “Coming, hyung.”


	3. Ambush

**12:45 AM (6 ¼ Hours Till Sunrise)**

“And you’re sure you didn’t hear anything, Suga hyung?” Rap Mon asks while Jimin, J-Hope, and Taehyung bandage Jungkook.

“Aniyo,” Suga replies. “I didn’t hear a thing, or see a thing. As soon as Jin hyung and I got here I went to work and he went upstairs. I didn’t even know Jungkook was here.”

“And we can’t call the hospital because the door is locked and cell coverage is mysteriously gone,” Rap Mon gripes. “What about internet?”

“I lost a connection around midnight, I think,” Suga says. “Maybe more like 12:10 or 12:15.”

“Wait, hyung,” Taehyung interrupts, looking up at Rap Mon and Suga as he squeezes ointment out of the tube and rubs it into one of the dozens of scratches on Jungkook’s arm. “How did Jungkook text me if he had no reception?” Taehyung takes his phone out of his pocket and hands it to Suga.

“ _Help_?” Suga reads. “ _Sent at 12:11 AM._ Huh.”

A silence follows as everyone sets to untangling their own thoughts. Then, the sound of creaking hinges comes from upstairs.

“Jin hyung?” Rap Mon calls, but receives no answer.

Taehyung jumps up. “We should go look upstairs again.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jongin says.

“Me too,” Taemin adds.

The threesome head upstairs and try Jin’s door. Still locked.

“Let’s look around a little more,” Taemin says.

Up the stairs and across the balcony they find Jungkook’s door just barely ajar. Only a very small child could slip through such a tight space. Taehyung pushes the door open and casts the light of his phone all around the room.

Jungkook’s bed is a disheveled mess, with blankets and sheets strewn across the mattress haphazardly. Traces of blood are all over the bedclothes. His pillows are scattered across the room. Jungkook’s phone is on the floor beside his bed, and all the soaked things from his backpack have been cleaned and laid out across two towels along the far wall.

“Hey, what’s this?” Jongin asks, picking up a shred of fabric from the floor and inspecting it under the light of his cell phone.

“May I see that, sunbaenim?” Taehyung asks. Jongin passes him the fabric and Taehyung recognizes it as part of a shirt Jungkook has—or had. Jungkook doesn’t wear it very often though. Silk dress shirts aren’t usually his style. He had mostly purchased it for the bright red color.

The lights flicker on and off for a moment, then hold steady.

“Hmm, maybe we lost power, and now it’s back?” Taemin suggests.

A blotch of color catches Taehyung’s eye. “Look at the door knob,” he says, pointing.

Jongin walks over to the door and bends to look at the knob. He stuffs his hands in his pockets uncomfortably and says, “Blood.”

“And that’s the knob on the side of the door Jungkook would have grabbed if he were trying to get out of here,” Taemin says. “So, was he attacked?”

The lights go out again, and the room is drowned in darkness.

Screams explode from the first floor. Jongin and Taemin bolt out of Jungkook’s room and out across the balcony, followed by Taehyung, where they hear a door slam. Not wasting a second, they go on to the stairwell and take the stairs four at a time. Taehyung is almost at the bottom when he smacks face first into something hard and falls back onto the stairs.

“Taehyung?” Jongin says. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Taehyung stares at stars for a moment, his head banging like a hammer, and then he responds “Yeah, I’m fine. What did I hit?”

Taemin flashes his phone around until he sees Jimin lying on the floor across from Taehyung. “Ooh, apparently you hit him.”

Taehyung tries to stand, but teeters slightly. Jongin takes Taehyung’s arm to stabilize him, and asks again “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Mm, ne, I’m alright sunbaenim,” Taehyung says, brushing Jongin away with a stuttered “Gomabseubnida.”

Jimin dizzily sits upright, clearly disoriented, but alright. So Taehyung stands and goes out into the common room. His phone’s light reveals that everyone is gone. Except for Jungkook’s blood stains on the couch, there’s no trace of BTS or EXO.

Then he almost trips over Rap Mon.

“Hyung? What are you doing on the floor?”

Rap Mon is unconscious, so Taehyung gives him a few shakes until he opens his eyes.

“Hyung,” Taehyung starts. “Are you alright?”

Rap Mon nods, lips pressed tight together. Taehyung pulls him to his feet, then asks “What happened?”

Rap Mon says nothing, searching the room with nervous glances.

“Hyung?” Taehyung says. “Nam Joon hyung, what’s wrong?”

Jimin calls Taehyung softly, “Tae? Who… who are you talking to?”

“Nam Joon hyung,” Taehyung replies, turning toward Jimin and shining the light in that direction so he could see.

Jimin’s face is grave. “Taehyung, come here. Now.”

“What?”

“Now, Taehyung, _now_!”

Taehyung starts walking toward Jimin when Rap Mon grabs his arm.

“Ow! Hyung! Hyung that hurts!” Taehyung protests, pulling away as hard as he can but Rap Monster is unmovable. “Hyung, stop! Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Rap Mon seizes Taehyung’s other arm and smiles soullessly. The smile spreads into a toothy grin, revealing garish alternating green and pink fangs each as long as a finger.

“Taehyung run!”


	4. Betrayed

**1:00 AM (6 Hours Till Sunrise)**

Rap Monster lunges at Taehyung’s face. Taehyung shuts his eyes tight.

Suddenly he’s yanked away. He trips over his own feet as he is pulled. He opens his eyes to see Jimin dragging him along toward the computer room. Jongin and Taemin are running alongside them.

Taehyung barely manages to halt and keep from crashing into the door.

“Yoongi!” Jimin shouts through the door. “Let us in! Let us in please! Someone! Ppalli! Hurry up!”

“Jimin,” Taemin gasps. “Jimin, duck!”

Jimin whips around and grabs a folding chair, holding it up like a shield just in time to block Rap Mon’s assault. Taemin and Jongin come up alongside Jimin and push with him, but even so their feet slide back.

The lock clicks and the door opens.

“Go!” Jimin grunts.

“I won’t leave you, hyung.”

“Sunbaenims,” Jimin says, the muscles in his arms popping. “Please keep my dongsaeng safe.”

With that, he throws the chair down and jumps at Rap Mon.

“Jimin!” Taehyung tries to help, but Taemin and Jongin intercept him and drive him into the computer room.

Suga immediately runs up and locks the door, bracing himself against it as it takes two staggering hits from the other side that jolt him and rattle the hinges.

“No!” Taehyung struggles free of Taemin and Jongin. “Hyung, how could you? Jimin! He’s still-”

“What?” Suga pales, looking over all the faces in the room. “I,” he gulps, “I thought-”

He is cut off by Jimin’s scream.

Suga cusses once, going rigid and white-knuckled.

“Don’t open the door!” Jimin cries raggedly. “Don’t! Don’t do it!”

“Hyung!” Taehyung takes Suga by the shoulders. “Open the door! Please!”

“Don’t open the door!”

“Hyung, _please!_ ”

“Don’t open the door!”

Suga shoves Taehyung off and sinks to the ground, plugging his ears with his fingers.

They hear furniture breaking, and things or people being slammed around. Taehyung runs forward and starts to unlock the door, but Taemin and Jongin hold him back again. Eventually Jimin’s cries go silent, and then they hear nothing.

“ _Hyung!_ ” Taehyung screams. “How could you! How could you do that to him!” His voice breaks and hot tears spill over his cheeks. “Jimin hyung,” he says, biting his lip. “Ji, Jimin.”

Jongin and Taemin release Taehyung, who sinks to the floor in defeat.

Taehyung scans the room quietly in the following silence. It’s a fairly small room with no windows, a floor lamp, a table with a desktop and a microphone on it, and two rotating chairs on wheels pulled up to it. Taehyung’s stare eventually finds Jungkook, asleep in the corner.

“So,” Kyung Soo addresses Jongin. “What happened to you?”

“Well,” Jongin starts, “we went upstairs, and everything was still locked, except for Jungkook’s room. Then the lights came on and we saw that there was some blood on the bed and the doorknob, and some signs of a struggle. We think he was attacked in there and then ran and hid in the bathroom.”

“Why didn’t he go to Jin-hyung?” J-Hope asks, pressing a wad of bloody tissues over his cheek.

“Hoseok, what happened to your face?” Taemin asks.

“Rap Monster hyung,” J-Hope says. “He bit me.”

Taemin’s eyes widen, and he slowly looks back and forth between Kyung Soo and J-Hope. “Maybe you guys should start.”

Kyung Soo sighs. “When the lights turned on, Hoseok and Jimin,” he pauses awkwardly at the mention of Jimin. “Um, we were just about done treating Jungkook. Then Nam Joon, he suddenly lost it. I think Suga was starting to say something, but then Nam Joon just grabbed Suga and started dragging him toward the back hall.”

Taehyung glances at Suga. Suga briefly makes eye contact, but then bursts into a coughing fit.

Kyung Soo continues, “Hoseok tried to pull Nam Joon away. In response, Nam Joon threw Suga down and grabbed Hoseok, and-”

“Bit me,” J-Hope repeats in a monotone.

“Then we stepped in,” Xiumin says. “And got away more or less in one piece. Jimin was running upstairs to warn you guys, and bring you into the computer room with the rest of us. That was the last we saw of him.”

There’s a silence. Then J-Hope speaks up.

“Did anyone else notice,” he pauses. “When, when the lights came on, Rap Monster hyung looked kind of… I don’t know. Confused maybe? Or, or pained?”

“Yes,” Baekhyun nods. “I think I saw that too.”

“Rap Mon hyung wouldn’t just do that,” J-Hope says.

“And,” Suga starts, his voice grating. “There’s something else. When the lights turned on, the windows reflected the room. I could have sworn,” he stops, unable to meet anyone’s eyes, stuttering over words he can’t manage to say.

Taehyung recalls what he saw in the bathroom mirror. Something he couldn’t even comprehend, let alone explain.

“Suga hyung,” Taehyung says. “We’re all going to see some pretty weird things before this night is over, ne hyung?”

Suga looks up at Taehyung, clears his throat once, and sniffles slightly. “In the reflection I thought I saw something like, like a mouth or whatever.”

“A mouth?” Chanyeol asks.

“Mm,” Suga nods. “It was big, like, like a dog’s. And about at that place, too. I mean, if it were on a dog, that’s about how far off the ground it would have been. And it was moving.”

“What?” Jongin looks skeptical. “There was a dog?”

“Aniyo,” Suga says, becoming twitchy. “It was just a mouth, with those really thin, pink lips that you see on animals.”

“Are you sure?” Xiumin asks.

“I’m serious!” Suga spouts.

“I believe you hyung,” Taehyung says. Suga holds Taehyung’s stare for a moment, then looks surprised.

“I just realized,” he says, standing up and walking over to the computer. “My microphone, I was making a ton of recordings, and I accidentally left it on for something like twenty minutes. I noticed it was still on when I lost internet,” Suga clicks through file after file on the computer screen as he speaks, “and if I lost internet a little after Jungkook sent that text, then maybe…”

“Maybe what?” J-Hope asks.

“Maybe my microphone picked up something that I didn’t.” He clicks the mouse a few more times. “Got it.”

Suga pulls his headphones out of the port and sets them aside, then cranks up the volume on the speakers.

“Let’s see,” Suga muses. “If I stopped the recording at about 12:15, then the four-minute mark would be just a little before midnight. Let’s start there.”

At five minutes and twelve seconds, a single scream penetrates the background noise. Not a sound of fear, but, quite clearly, the sound of pain.

“Ne,” J-Hope says. “That’s Jungkook.”

The one scream is followed by several more, each longer and more desperate than the last. After a pause, a slamming door can be heard, which they assume is the bathroom door. Then the clip ends.

“Aish, if only I hadn’t turned off the microphone so quickly, we might have picked up more.”

“But, what is this?” Kyung Soo speculates. “I mean, what are we supposed to assume? There was just suddenly a murderer in Jungkook’s room who couldn’t break down a bathroom door?”

“Or a ghost,” Chanyeol offers.

Xiumin gives Chanyeol a whack on the back of his head. “Don’t be insensitive,” he says.

“I don’t know, sunbaenim,” Suga says. “Given everything we’ve seen and experienced so far, is something supernatural unreasonable?”

“Well,” J-Hope starts. “Whatever it is, Nam Joon hyung is working for it now.”


	5. Lights

**1:15 AM (5 ¾ Hours Till Sunrise)**

“Hey,” Baekhyun starts. “I don’t hear anything on the other side of the door. You think maybe it’s safe to go out?”

“Maybe,” Suga says. “Or every second we hesitate it just gets more dangerous.”

“Should we try and make a break for it?” Taemin asks. “We could run and get help.”

“Isn’t anything worth a shot at this point?” Kyung Soo says noncommittally.

“I’ll go out and look around first,” Xiumin says, standing up and walking toward the door. He unlocks it, then turns back to glare severely. “If you hear anything, don’t try to come and rescue me. Do you understand? …Good.” Then he pulls the door open a skosh and sticks his head out, turning one way then the other before slipping out into the common room completely.

“Chanyeol,” he says softly. “Lock this door behind me.”

Chanyeol, who is closest to the door, complies as soon as Xiumin shuts it.

After a moment, Xiumin returns and reports.

“There’s some blood on the floor,” he says. “I suppose it’s Jimin’s. Other than that, the coast is clear.”

They split up into three teams: the escape team- Baekhyun, Jongin, and Taemin- will try to sneak out the front hall and try the main door or the window in the mudroom; the exploration team- Taehyung, Suga, and Xiumin- will look for any trace of Jimin or Jin; the defense team- Kyung Soo, Chanyeol, and J-Hope- will stay behind to watch Jungkook and unlock the door for anyone who comes back.

“Hey, hyung, V,” J-Hope calls to Suga and Taehyung as they prepare to walk out the door. He pulls the tissue off his face and looks at the dried blood for a moment, then says “Stay safe. Ne?”

They both nod.

“We’ll be back,” Suga says with a tired smile, making a peace sign. Taehyung laughs and copies Suga.

“Alright,” Xiumin says to both teams. “Let’s go.”

Out in the common room, the exploration team and the escape team give each other a final goodbye wave before the escape team slips out the door into the front hall and closes it behind them.

Suga pulls out his phone first and uses the light to start inspecting the smears of blood in front of the door to the computer room. Taehyung and Xiumin have their phones out in a moment too, and they follow a trail of drips to the back hall where they find two doors.

“One of these is the manager’s room, isn’t it?” Suga whispers. Taehyung nods. “And the other one?”

“I don’t know,” Taehyung says. “Closet or a basement or something.”

Suga ushers them back out into the common room, away from the doors. “Well,” he says, “we know one thing. Jimin was carried, not dragged. If he was dragged, we would have seen smears all the way to the doors instead of drips.”

“And if Rap Mon hyung bothered to move Jimin hyung,” Taehyung says. “He must not be dead.”

“We don’t know _that_ , Taehyung,” Suga says. Taehyung frowns. Suga sighs and continues “I just mean we need to focus on what we really know if we’re going to make any progress, okay?”

“Ne.”

“Alright, then, should we look upstairs for Jin hyung next?” Suga opens the discussion to Xiumin, who shrugs and says,

“Sure.”

They start off toward the stairs. They’re a few steps up when the lights turn on.

Suga swears.

“Run,” Xiumin says.

“Right,” Suga says. “Right, come on. Run!”

They take off toward the stairs when they hear a piercing scream from the mudroom. Xiumin freezes.

“Sunbaenim,” Suga starts. “Sunbaenim, run!”

“Ani,” he says. “No, you go back to the computer room. Just go, I’ll be fine. Go!”

“Fine! Taehyung, let’s go!” Suga grabs Taehyung by the sleeve and drags him along toward the computer room.

Xiumin is almost to the door when it opens and nearly whacks him in the face. He jumps back as Taemin stumbles out, carrying Jongin. Taemin drops Jongin and kicks the door closed, his hands slide down to his knees where he stays bent over and panting for a time.

“It got Baekhyun,” he says breathlessly.

Suga and Taehyung stopped in front of the door to the computer room when Taemin emerged and have since been watching Xiumin.

“Hyung?” Taehyung says. “What should we do?”

“Uh, I,” Suga stutters. “Let’s help them bring Jongin into the computer room.”

“Taemin,” Xiumin starts. “What happened? Is Jongin okay?”

“Ne,” Taemin says, straightening. “He’s fine, just took a blow and fell wrong. He hit his head. I’m pretty sure he’ll be alright.”

“How do we know you haven’t been turned?” Suga asks as he walks over.

Taemin pauses to think, then says “Nam Joon hasn’t spoken a word since he was turned, right? And I’ve been talking since I got here. Good enough for you?”

Suga doesn’t answer, instead asking another question. “What did you see?”

“You really want to know?” Taemin asks, blinking as his eyes continue adjusting to the light in the room.

“Try me.”

“A tiger,” Taemin says. “But like a circus-tiger, all covered in too much makeup and weird colors… its teeth, were…” he trails off. “They were like Rap Monster’s.”

Suddenly something behind Taehyung and Suga seems to catch Taemin’s eye.

“Wae?” Xiumin asks. “What? What are you looking at?”

“Actually,” Taemin gulps. “They looked a lot like that.” He points to the back hall.

Suga and Taehyung spin around freeze in place.

“Nam Joon hyung,” Taehyung whispers.

Rap Mon holds his head at an almost unnatural angle, grinning wider than it seems he should be able to, his mouth full of green and pink glistening fangs. His gaze is fixed on one person in particular.

Taehyung bites his lip as he follows Rap Mon’s stare.

“Yoongi hyung,” he says. “Nam Joon hyung, he’s looking at you.”

“I know Tae,” Suga says. “I know.”


	6. Turned

**1:30 AM (5 ½ Hours Till Sunrise)**

“Yoongi hyung,” he says. “Nam Joon hyung, he’s looking at you.”

“I know Tae,” Suga says. “I know.”

In a fraction of a moment, Suga glances from Rap Monster, to Taehyung, to Jongin on the ground behind him, then says “Taehyung, you have to do something for me.”

“What is it?”

Very quietly, Suga continues, “I need you to take Xiumin and Jongin and Taemin back to the computer room while Rap Mon is distracted. Ne?”

“But-”

“Don’t argue with me, Taehyung. Do what your hyung tells you, now.”

Taehyung bites his lower lip when it starts to tremble. “Hyung, that’s what Jimin said, too.”

“Go,” Suga says, then slowly starts walking toward Rap Mon. “Hyung?” He asks cautiously. “Nam Joon hyung? Are you in there?”

Taehyung is stuck in place, watching helplessly until Xiumin taps his shoulder.

“Come on,” Xiumin says. He starts to pull Taehyung along with him, Taemin in tow carrying Jongin to the best of his ability.

“Nam Joon hyung,” Suga starts. “Everything’s okay now, ne?” He spares a look in Taehyung’s direction- they’re knocking on the computer room door. He looks back at Rap Mon and takes one more step closer. “…Can you say anything at all, hyung?”

Rap Mon lunges and grabs Suga by the throat.

“Hyung!” Taehyung breaks free of Xiumin’s grip and goes barreling toward Suga.

“Wait, Taehyung!” Xiumin calls.

Taehyung jumps on Rap Mon from behind and tries to pull him off of Suga. Rap Mon runs backward into the wall, crushing Taehyung and dragging Suga along.

“Taehyung,” Suga strains. “Stop. Go, go back…stop.”

Taehyung’s head is pulsing like a drum. The bright lights disorient him further. “Yoongi hyung,” he moans as someone shouts something about reflections and a door slams somewhere in the back hall. “Hyung.”

“Taehyung!” Xiumin calls again. “Get over here! Now! I can’t hold the door open any longer!”

“Wait, what?” Taehyung fumbles. Suddenly Xiumin curses and another door slams, then there’s only silence.

A low growl resonates throughout the room, originating from the front hall. The sound brings Taehyung to his feet again, and he looks around, seeing only Baekhyun leering at him from the other side of the room

_Reflections…_

Taehyung looks right and left and then notices movement in the reflection of the room on the windows. Thin lips, like Suga said, but as big as a tiger’s, like Taemin said. And they’re trotting along as though attached to the hulking figure that Taemin described. Only one more detail- an ear-to-ear grin reveals rows of green and pink fangs sharpened to a polished glow. And it’s coming toward him.

He wastes too much time and a massive, blunt force like a huge paw clobbers Taehyung’s shoulder. The impact sends Taehyung flying across the room, over the couch, smacking into the floor and rolling a distance. He dizzily struggles to his feet and makes a break for the computer room, glancing over his shoulder at the rapidly approaching reflection. He looks forward again only to find Baekhyun blocking the door. His shoes screech on the wood floor as he redirects his speed toward the front hall, bolting for the first floor bathroom. If the second floor bathroom kept Jungkook safe, maybe this one can keep Taehyung safe.

Coming to a hurried halt in front of the bathroom door, Taehyung gives the handle a twist: locked.

“No, no, no! Please open!” Taehyung begs, twisting the doorknob and tugging as hard as he can.

Another unseen paw slams into Taehyung’s torso and knocks him against the opposite wall beside the stairs. He collapses to the ground and rolls out of the way toward the door to the front hall, but feels the shockwave of something crashing onto the floor beside him. Taehyung clambers up and takes the handle of the front hall door. A fresh wave of adrenaline courses through him when the door opens for him. He throws it open all the way and rushes through, slamming it behind him; a dead silence follows.

Taehyung slowly catches his breath, and spares a moment to look at his injuries. They were less blunt force, he realizes, than he thought. A burning sensation spreads throughout his body when he sees the long scratch marks and the blood soaking into his shirt. His head feels light, the floor starts to spin nauseatingly, and he puts a hand on the wall to steady himself.

Taking a few steps forward, broken glass crunches under Taehyung’s feet as he wobbles over to the other end of the hall unsteadily. It’s then that Taehyung wonders, how are the lights still on?

Looking up, he sees new bulbs in place of the shattered ones on the floor, glowing brightly. And then they start to flicker: off, on, off, on, off, on… off.

The room begins shaking like an earthquake is passing. Taehyung is thrown further off balance, when something drips on him from the ceiling. Before he has the chance to look, the overpowering smell makes him gag: it’s the same repulsive sludge that exploded out of the card reader on the front door and from Jungkook’s bag. Now it’s oozing copiously from the ceiling, dripping down the walls like an encroaching predator.

Taehyung stumbles around, the tremors throwing him against one wall, then the other. Then he takes a wary step back and hears a splash. Although he’s seeing it, Taehyung doesn’t register what the warm liquid seeping up around his ankles is for another moment.

Blood.

The room tosses Taehyung again, and he falls backward, the blood spattering him and soaking into his clothes. The blood sloshes back and forth constantly with the shaking of the room, but despite that motion, Taehyung picks out a smidge of movement in the hall ahead of him. He instinctively fumbles to crawl backward toward the door that leads to the common room as he watches an unusual splash pattern come closer and closer, like an invisible person walking near, or two people? Or a creature on all fours.

Frantic now, Taehyung fights the disorienting tremors and makes his way to the door, flattening himself up against it. He closes his eyes to shut out some of the input and waits for one of many ways to die: the blood might drown him, the invisible hunter approaching from the other end of the hall might catch him, or-

“Hyung! Hyung help!” Is that… Jungkook?

“Taehyung, please!” And that’s J-Hope.

“Taehyung!” Taemin? “If you don’t help us now, we’re all dead!”

The pleas come without ceasing from the other side of the door, and Taehyung tries to plug his ears to block them out, but that offers no effect whatsoever.

And then something begins throwing itself violently against the door. Taehyung is shaken by each impact, and starts biting his lip to keep from screaming.

And then it all fades.

The ooze.

The tremors.

The blood.

The footsteps.

The screams.

It all fades away.

And one, incredibly soft voice whispers to Taehyung, so close, it could be breathing down his neck:

“Taehyung, open the door.” It’s Suga. “Open the door, Tae. I just want to talk.”


	7. Hyung

**1:45 AM (5 ¼** **Hours Till Sunrise)**

“Just open the door, Taehyung.”

“Yoongi… Yoongi hyung? Is that you?”

“Your hyung is telling you to open the door, Taehyung. You should always trust your hyungs.”

“I don’t know that it’s really you though.”

“Kim Taehyung, open the door.”

Taehyung glances at the other end of the hall. Is there any chance he could make a run for it?

Taking that chance, Taehyung puts on a burst of speed and runs as fast as he can, heart pounding. He reaches out his hand for the doorknob. So close. Time seems to slow down. Just one more step.

And then it’s all back.

The ooze.

The tremors.

The blood.

The footsteps.

The screams.

A waterfall of blood spouts up in front of Taehyung, blocking his path completely. He trips backward and falls into the blood on the floor. Taehyung thrashes around as the tremors increase, making it impossible to stand let alone tell what direction is up. Spitting blood out of his mouth, Taehyung pulls himself into what might be a sitting position, but the entire world shifts again and he ends up crashing smack into the door to the common room.

Suga’s whisper cuts through the commotion.

“Taehyung, open the door.”

“No!”

“Open the _door_.”

“I can’t!”

“Open the door!”

Taehyung digs his fingers into his ears to tune out anything he possibly can. He clamps his eyes shut tight.

“ _Taehyung!_ ”

“Why don’t _you_ open the door?” Taehyung shouts.

All the input vanishes in an instant again. Cautiously, Taehyung opens his eyes and takes his fingers out of his ears, glancing around with suspicion.

“Because,” Suga responds. “I don’t like working.”

_What?_ Taehyung thinks. There’s a pause, and finally Suga resumes.

“You can sit in there forever and go nowhere, or you can open the door. Take your time.”

Taehyung waits a moment to consider the painful logic of that sentence. He breathes in deeply, stilling frayed nerves, then stands and opens the door.

He expects Suga to be on the immediate other side of the door, but instead, Taehyung finds his hyung on the other side of the room, standing in front of the back hall. Behind Suga, Taehyung sees Rap Mon, J-Hope, and Xiumin; all of them sport lifeless smiles that reveal mouths full of green and pink fangs.

“How…” Taehyung trails off, looking back and forth between J-Hope and Xiumin.

“Ah, them,” Suga says. “I think they meant to rescue you.”

“And,” Taehyung swallows. “How is it that you… that Suga hyung, is talking?”

“Humans are simple; weak,” Suga says. “They can only be made to do one thing at a time if you want it done correctly. This one, called Min, is a mouthpiece. Or a messenger if you will. The others are pawns- disposable brunt force.”

Taehyung studies his circumstances carefully. Xiumin and J-Hope have a glazed look to their eyes, although there’s a glint that still speaks of a distinct deadliness. Rap Mon on the other hand seems worn: his breathing is labored, and a single line of blood is trickling out of his nose. His eyes are so bloodshot they almost look red.

Not able to deduce much of anything from this, Taehyung’s thoughts then drift to Jin and Jimin.

“My hyungs,” Taehyung starts. “Jin hyung, and Jimin hyung. Where are they? And are they okay?”

“No.”

“What?” Taehyung asks, but no further answer can be garnered. “What about Jungkook? What did he do wrong? And the rest of us?”

“Humans taste good,” Suga replies calmly. “You run when I chase you and scream and cower when I scare you. I especially like to eat faces,” he pauses. “Hold still for a moment, and I’ll show you how much I like to eat faces.”

Taehyung goes stiff with terror. The sound of paws padding across the floor fills Taehyung’s ears.

Suddenly the computer room door opens and a small object wrapped in fabric goes flying across the room. There’s a soft scraping sound, like the paws changing direction rapidly. Suga, Rap Mon, Xiumin, and J-Hope all fixate on the object obsessively.

“Taehyung!” A strong whisper demands Taehyung’s attention. He quickly turns his head toward the source- the computer room. Chanyeol is part way out the door, gesturing for Taehyung to come. Taehyung quickly runs to him, and Chanyeol opens the door wide enough for Taehyung to slide through.

Taehyung collapses on the floor of the computer room, suddenly gasping for air. The lock clicks behind him, and the tension in the room tangibly decreases.

“V hyung?” One voice beckons. A hand comes to rest on Taehyung’s shoulder. He sits up straight and turns to see the person addressing him. His jaw drops, and his eyes sting slightly.

“Jungkookie?” Taehyung says, then pulls his dongsaeng into a hug. He had already lost three of the most important people in his world that night, possibly four, and he would not lose the one member of BTS that he was responsible for.

Jungkook sits back after a moment, and Taehyung can see the scratch marks that still remain on the magnae’s face and exposed arms. The blood on Jungkook’s shirt is dry now, but visible nonetheless.

“Are you okay?” Taehyung asks.

“Ne, hyung,” Jungkook says. “Not one hundred percent, but better. But hyung, I have to tell you something. There’s good news and bad news,” he pauses, somewhat despondent. “A lot more bad news than good though. Where do you want to start?”

Taehyung ponders in silence for a moment. “Bad news first.”


	8. Password

**2:00 AM (5 Hours Till Sunrise)**

“…and I hung up my phone,” Jungkook continues recounting the events that occurred around midnight. “But the cat noises didn’t stop. At first, I thought it was Jin hyung or Suga hyung pulling a prank; then I saw this creepy little cat standing over my new plushie. It just stood there and stared for a minute, and then it… it started to smile. I mean really, _smiled_. Like, it was grinning from one ear to the other, and its teeth weren’t white. They were-”

“Green and pink?” Kyung Soo asks.

“Ne, sunbaenim,” Jungkook says. “How did you know?”

“We’ve run into this creature a few times now,” Kyung Soo replies. “But keep talking. We haven’t heard this much detail yet.”

“I don’t have that much more to offer on appearance,” Jungkook says. “Like that,” he snaps his fingers for effect, “the cat was gone. Then something started moving my bed. Pushing and pulling really fast until I was sick. I fell off the side of the bed and wasn’t sure what to do, when suddenly I was just getting covered in scratches all over. I called Jin hyung, but I think he was asleep and didn’t hear me. That’s when I grabbed my phone and sent that text to Taetae hyung. Then I got a scratch on my hand, and it really hurt, so I dropped the phone. After that I tried to hide in my closet, but I didn’t close myself in fast enough. That one silk shirt I had hanging in there was just suddenly torn off the hanger and was being ripped to bits on the floor. I left my room and ran down the hall to the bathroom. I could still hear the cat purring just outside the door, but after a while I couldn’t hear a thing. And then I passed out.”

“So,” Taehyung starts. “The silk tie wrapped around a paper weight that you through out into the common room earlier… you figured out that it would distract them based on the way your silk shirt got ripped up?”

“Aniyo,” Jungkook replies. “Taemin sunbaenim did the figuring.”

“It cost me one of my best ties,” Chanyeol teases.

“But,” Kyung Soo starts. “I’m still confused by what Taehyung said he saw in the hallway. It must have been an illusion or a hallucination, ne? After all, he said he felt the whole room shaking, but we didn’t feel anything like that here in the computer room.”

“There are too many unknowns,” Taemin says. “We don’t even know exactly what it is we’re fighting.”

“Sunbaenim,” Jungkook starts. “If V hyung was hallucinating in the hallway, or, under _some_ kind of delusion, how do we know that any of this is real either?”

Silence falls.

“I guess,” Taehyung says softly. “I guess we don’t know, Jungkook.”

“And Rap Monster,” Chanyeol says. “Why was he bleeding?”

“Maybe it’s some kind of forced adrenaline rush,” Taemin muses. “It wears you down very quickly, but is effective for the time being. Like a sprinter. You can’t run that fast for very long.”

“Jungkook,” Jongin starts. “You mentioned a plushie? Where did you get it?”

“At a fan-meet earlier, sunbaenim.”

“Ah Jungkook,” Jongin tsks. “You should _never_ take stuffed animals from fans, no matter how cute it is. Assumptions like that can be dangerous.”

“Joesonghabnida, sorry sunbaenim,” Jungkook ducks his head in respect.

“We should burn it,” Chanyeol says. All eyes turn to him, to which he shrugs and says “All this started when Jungkook got that plushie. Ghosts and spirits get attached to objects like that sometimes.” He receives skeptical glares. “What? Yoongi didn’t think that was unreasonable.” A long, long silence follows this.

After a time, Jongin speaks, his voice betraying his exhaustion, “What do we have to lose?” Taemin glances over at Jongin, disconcerted by his friend’s state.

“Okay, sunbaenim,” Taehyung says. “Then what do we burn it with?”

“Umm,” Jongin hums in thought.

“Oh,” Chanyeol jumps up. “The fireplace in the common room. There should be some matches or a lighter or something over there… ne?”

“I’m not sure,” Taehyung says.

“Well then let’s go check,” Chanyeol says, walking to the door. “Who’s coming with me?”

“I’ll go, sunbae,” Taemin says.

“I’m going too,” Jongin starts.

“No, Jongin, you can’t,” Taemin says. “When you took that hit to the head before, I thought you’d be fine right away, but you’re not.”

“Taemin,” Chanyeol interrupts. “Stay, and watch over him. Ne?”

“Ne, sunbae,” Taemin repeats his sunbae meekly.

“Anyone else?” Chanyeol asks.

“Aigoo,” Kyung Soo says. “I guess I’ll come.”

“And me,” Taehyung adds.

“Alright then,” Chanyeol says. “Let’s go.”

They sneak out into the dark common room, casting the light of their phones left and right as they do so to create a reflection on the window.

“Over here,” Chanyeol says, beckoning the others to join him by the fireplace built into the wall. “Aish,” he sighs. “Never mind. It’s electric.”

“I think there was a matchbox in the emergency kit from the kitchen,” Kyung Soo suggests.

“Let’s check on that,” Chanyeol says.

In the kitchen, they poke around in the cabinets until they find a white, plastic box with a handle and a red cross on the side.

“Found it, sunbaenim,” Taehyung says, lifting it out of the cabinet and setting it down on the counter. He opens the lid as Kyung Soo and Chanyeol walk over, and Kyung Soo snatches the matchbox and puts it in his pocket.

“Great,” Chanyeol says. “Now we can head upstairs.”

“Wait,” Taehyung starts. “There’s medical stuff in here that Jongin sunbaenim and Jungkook might need.”

“Should we drop it off in the computer room before we go upstairs?” Chanyeol asks.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Kyung Soo says. “And since we’re using matches, we’ll need to get paper from the printer in the computer room to use as kindling.”

“Grab some water bottles from the fridge, too,” Chanyeol says. “Jungkook lost a lot of blood, and we could all use some water anyway.”

Kyung Soo picks up the emergency kit and Taehyung loads himself with water bottles.

“Alright, come on,” Chanyeol says. “And be quiet about it.”

Although it only takes a few seconds to get from the kitchen to the computer room, each fraction of a second feels like forever. Taehyung remembers all the times he’s walked through this space without fear, but now fear overtakes him entirely. Every sound seems loud enough to rouse a sleeping bear, or at least alert the monster lurking in the shadows. Taehyung gulps and sneaks along as soundlessly as he can, wishing that the nightmare will end soon.

Chanyeol taps on the computer room door twice, and whispers Taemin’s name. The lock clicks and the door opens.

“I just realized,” Chanyeol starts, now safely within the confines of the computer room. “We need a password. If Taehyung heard us calling his name while he was trapped in the hallway, then we could theoretically hear our names being called by trusted friends as well, and end up letting in anyone.”

Taemin looks pale at the thought, and says “You’re right. We need a password.”

There’s a pause as they all consider the issue. Then Taehyung, handing a bottle of water to Jungkook, says “How about a song name? I heard My Copycat at the restaurant earlier.”

“I think that’s good,” Kyung Soo says.

Chanyeol nods. “Someone write that down.”

Jongin grabs a paper and jots it down.

“Kookie?” Taehyung asks.

“Ne, hyung?”

“I just wanted to ask again, are you sure you didn’t hear anything more from Jin hyung?”

“Ne, hyung,” Jungkook says. “I wish I had though. I want him to be okay.”

“Alright,” Chanyeol says, suddenly seeming weary, massaging his temples. “Anything else, or are we ready to go out again?” No one speaks further, so he continues. “Okay then. Taehyung, get some paper from the printer, and let’s head upstairs.”


	9. Unseen

**2:45 AM (4 ¼ Hours Till Sunrise)**

Out in the dark common room once more, Taehyung notices a vague line against the windows. Snow is piling up outside. A full foot of snow has buried the bottom of the window, and snow continues to fall. If this goes on for much longer, they could be trapped in here.

Heart pounding, Taehyung finds himself twitchy, constantly shining his phone-light back and forth and checking the window reflection obsessively.

The sound of a cough sends a jolt of terror straight to his core. “Did you hear that?” He whispers to Kyung Soo.

“Hear what?”

“There it is again,” Taehyung says. “That.”

“Yeah,” Kyung Soo says. “Yeah, I hear that. Where’s it coming from?”

Chanyeol steps closer to Kyung Soo and Taehyung, listening intently. They hear the coughing again.

Taehyung recognizes it, and nearly chokes. “Yoongi hyung,” he says.

“It’s coming from the back hall,” Kyung Soo notes. Taehyung takes off slowly in that direction, creeping down the hall as silently as he can.

The light from his phone shows him that there isn’t just one door- the manager’s. There are two. One on either side of the hall. The one to the left should be the manager’s bedroom, but the other one… what was it, a closet? Or maybe it was a basement? Taehyung couldn’t remember having ever opened the door.

Perhaps the door had never been there to be opened. Swallowing his fear, Taehyung sneaks up alongside it and puts his ear to the cold wood: nothing. Another coughing fit starts, but it’s clearly not coming from behind this door. Stepping away from the right wall, Taehyung slowly goes to the other door. When he puts his ear to it, the sound intensifies.

Suga’s cough sounds dry, and strained. But after a moment it becomes soupier, as though he’s puking, or bleeding, or both.

There’s a nippy growl on the other side of the door, and the lights blink on without a hint of a flicker, bathing the entire interior of the house in white light. Taehyung jumps back, and a hand grabs his arm. He whips around to see Kyung Soo.

“Run, Taehyung!” Kyung Soo says, pulling Taehyung along behind him as he and Chanyeol start running toward the computer room. Fear instinct says go with them.

Go.

Go!

Run!

But another instinct penetrates.

“Sunbaenim.” He stops dead in his tracks, yanking Kyung Soo to a halt.

“What are you doing?” Kyung Soo growls.

“We can run forever,” Taehyung starts, remembering the words spoken to him in the hall…

_You can sit in there forever and go nowhere, or you can open the door._

_You run when I chase you and scream and cower when I scare you._

“…Or we can take a risk now that we’ll have to take eventually anyway. My hyungs and Baehyun and Xiumin sunbaenim might not have much time left if Taemin is right about the forced adrenaline. We have to do something or do nothing.”

Chanyeol and Kyung soo watch him carefully for a moment. Then, Kyung Soo looks to Chanyeol. Chanyeol shakes his head and swallows nervously.

“Alright,” he says. “We’ll back you up. Let’s go.”

They take off running for the second floor, past the bathroom door- still ajar, across the balcony, and stop in front of Jungkook’s room. Taehyung finds the door locked, and curses.

_Didn’t we leave this open?_

“There has to be a way to get in here!” He says. A spontaneous thought occurs to him, and he goes back to the second floor bathroom. Looking up at the ceiling, he sees the vent.

“Taehyung,” Kyung Soo says, coming around the corner and peeking in, followed by Chanyeol. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting in to Jungkook’s room, sunbaenim,” Taehyung says, grabbing a folding stepstool that is leaning against the wall and unfolding it directly beneath the vent. Chanyeol watches, uncomprehending at first.

“Wait, Taehyung,” Chanyeol starts. “You don’t really think that will work, do you?”

“It has to, sunbaenim,” Taehyung responds, popping the grille off the vent. “We don’t have any other options. If we do something loud like breaking the door down, we’ll be heard and caught for sure.”

“Then what are we supposed to do while you’re crawling around up there?”

“Would you keep watch for me, sunbaenim?” Taehyung asks, reaching up into the vent and tapping around to find a hand-hold.

“Michyeosseo?” Kyung Soo asks. “Are you out of your mind?”

Taehyung doesn’t answer, instead pulling himself up into the vent, phone in hand. He angles the phone in front of him to illuminate the cramped crawlspace ahead.

“Taehyung!” Chanyeol calls.

“Sunbaenim?”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says.

“It’s a little late for that,” Kyung Soo scoffs.

“I mean it,” Chanyeol goes on. “We won’t leave you. Be careful.”

Taehyung promises to fulfill his sunbaenim’s request to the best of his ability, then begins the journey through the vents. The metal clangs every now and then as though it could snap at any moment under Taehyung’s weight, and there’s a soft scuffing sound whenever Taehyung brushes up against the sides too harshly. His heartbeat thuds in his ears, and his chest feels tight. What if they’re already done for, and this is just a waste of time? What if Taehyung’s left Kyung Soo and Chanyeol down there to be ambushed and killed or turned?

To take his mind off of these things, Taehyung pictures the vent system and imagines it as a map laying over the ceiling of the second floor. It’s a long crawl to Jungkook’s room, but there aren’t too many turns. Eventually he sees the white light provided by a vent and looks in to see the floor of Jungkook’s bedroom. Grabbing one of the bars in the grille with two fingers so it doesn’t clatter to the floor, Taehyung pushes until the vent slides out of place. Then a well-timed flick of the wrist sends it flying forward- landing neatly on Jungkook’s bed with hardly any sound.

Taehyung drops down to the floor making as little noise as he can. He puts his phone in his pocket again as the lights are still on: both unnerving and useful. Taehyung begins scouring the room for the cat plushie, and spots Jungkook’s backpack spread out on the towels with numerous other things.

The backpack is empty, and although the other plushie, the carrot plushie, is on another towel nearby, the cat is nowhere in sight. Taehyung begins tearing through things frantically in his search, when someone calls his name.

“Taehyung?”

Taehyung jumps, gasping rigidly.

“Taehyung, are you there? It’s Kyung Soo. We’re right outside. Did you find it yet?”

Steadying his heart, Taehyung approaches the door and whispers through it “Aniyo sunbaenim. I can’t find it. Anywhere. I… I think it’s gone.”

“Okay then,” Kyung Soo says. “Just get out of there and we’ll go back to the computer room and plan something else. We’re not giving up, ne?”

“Ne, sunbaenim,” Taehyung says. He grabs a stool and puts it under the vent, then climbs back in and begins the crawl back to the bathroom… but, which way to turn? His mind goes blank. Why _now?_

Taking a risk, Taehyung turns down the first right and crawls a distance, then pauses, a sound catching his attention. His face changes to match his disconcerted attention. Suddenly, he recognizes another set of crawling sounds- like his own, but from further down the vent. He starts to shimmy backward little by little, every instinct screaming for him to kick or shout or run somehow. But Taehyung knows that a loud noise such as that could be the end of him.

His belt catches on one of the junctions between two metal sections of vent, and as he slowly begins to work it unstuck, the sound up ahead intensifies. Taehyung freezes, watching the corner in front of him for any sign of motion. The light from his phone casts a distinct line between the lit and shadowy area, although the beam of light quivers with Taehyung’s own shaking.

One hand reaches out of the shadows and flails around for a grip, latching on to a junction like the one Taehyung’s belt is caught on. Then it pulls something forward- a person.

J-Hope. His eyes, bloodshot and open too wide, lock on to Taehyung’s immediately. The demonic grin is static, as though J-Hope’s face is truly frozen that way.

Without meaning to Taehyung lets out a shocked scream. Frantic now, Taehyung tugs on his belt to free it with no success. J-Hope drags himself closer every second. Taehyung arches his back so he can reach his belt buckle and undoes the latch, ripping it out of his belt loops as quickly as possible and flinging it forward at J-Hope. The belt does nothing to stop J-Hope’s advance, but at least Taehyung can continue on backward. He’s not as fast as J-Hope though.

After backing out of that vent completely, Taehyung finally starts moving forward again, clambering at the highest speed he can.

Something touches his foot. One last adrenaline rush propels Taehyung a little faster, just fast enough, to make it the rest of the way to the vent in the bathroom. He starts to fall face-first to the floor, but Kyung Soo notices just in time and breaks his fall.

Not wasting a second, Taehyung jumps to his feet and jams the grille back over the vent. He then yanks Kyung Soo up as well and races out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind them.

“Gomabseubnida,” Taehyung says breathlessly.

“What’s chasing you?” Kyung Soo asks.

“We heard you scream,” Chanyeol says.

“Hobi hyung,” Taehyung says.

Then they hear the sound of giant paws pounding up the steps. Human footsteps follow. In a moment they feel the vibrations of whatever made the first sound, and then they see Xiumin and Baekhyun come up the stairs. Baekhyun is somewhat bloody around the nose and eyes.

“This way!” Taehyung shouts, taking Kyung Soo and Chanyeol by the arms and leading them back down the hall to the balcony. “Jump off! We can land on the couches!”

But before they have a chance to do so, a rushing wave of white sludge comes racing toward them from the back of the house. It crashes over them, and washes them toward the front of the house, where their unseen predator lays in wait.

Taehyung shuts his eyes tight, surrounded by the sludge and the rancid, overpowering scent it puts off. And then, something yanks him upward. He opens his eyes and realizes he’s seeing the whole scene from above.

And then everything goes black.

Panicked, Taehyung slowly adjusts to his new surroundings- quiet, dark, a little musty. His own breathing is ragged and loud, but as he calms down, he hears another, softer breathing pattern.

“Taehyung? Are you alright?”

Taehyung knows this voice.

“Hyung,” his own voice catches trying to speak the name. “Jin hyung.”


	10. Dawn/Delusion

**Chapter 10: Delusion**

**3:15 AM (3 ¾ Hours Till Sunrise)**

“Jin hyung? Is that you?” It’s too dark to see a thing.

“Ne, it’s me,” Jin says. “Tae, are you alright?”

“I got a few scratches earlier,” Taehyung says. “They’ve mostly closed up now, although I think I may be bruising.”

“Oh good.”

“Good that I’m bruising?”

“Aigoo! Not that you’re bruising. That you’re okay.”

“But, Jin hyung,” Tae starts. “Where are we? Why are you up here?”

“This is the attic,” Jin says. “I hid up here after the cat attacked me.”

“So it is, for sure, a cat?”

“Ne. It reminds me of the Cheshire cat, the way it keeps turning invisible.”

“Hmm? Oh, ne. That makes sense.”

Screams erupt from downstairs.

“Hyung! Stop it! Please! Hoseok hyung! _Please!_ ”

“What? Chanyeol hyung? What are you doing? No! No!”

“Taehyung where are you!”

“V hyung! Help!”

Taehyung turns to Jin. “We have to do something!”

“We can’t do anything, not right now.”

“What?”

“It will all be over when the sun rises anyway.”

“Jin… _what_ are you talking about?”

Jin pauses for a while, then says “Taehyung, you really should read more. Let me tell you a story. It goes like this:

“Long ago, in ancient China, there once lived a woman who was married to a moderately wealthy man- a nobleman, and they lived happily together in their estate. The woman was childless, barren, and bored, which made her quite lonely.

“She tried very hard to be beautiful, kind of like Jimin, you know? She wore powders and dyes and applied floral designs with glue, (oh, and did you know? They used to make glue out of fish paste? Isn’t that disgusting? Anyway-) and she wore only the most beautiful silken, embroidered robes in many, many layers and colors. She practiced musical instruments, like flutes, until her proficiency was exemplary.

“One day, her husband took note, and asked why she went to such lengths. She confessed it was a way to pass her lonesome hours. Moved deeply, the husband tried to think of something to get her so that she would not be so lonely while he managed their affairs all day. As he walked, he came upon a starved, near-dead cat on the side of the road. Seeing no traces of any owner, the man took the cat home and suggested that his wife nurse the creature back to health.

“The woman delighted in her little companion, pampering it to wellness again. She lavished all her husband’s wealth on the cat, feeding it the best food in the house, having the finest silk garments made for it, and giving it the fairest and fullest of everything. The cat became accustomed to this lifestyle, and grew demanding and fat and cranky, like Suga in the mornings. Hehe, but not fat.

“But as I was saying, the husband came home to his wife one day, and told her that the expense of the cat had grown too much. They would have to get rid of it. She begged her husband not to banish her only companion, and once again moved by her grief, he promised to take a walk and think about it.

“While he was gone, the woman began thinking of ways to make the cat a less expensive pet. When the cook brought the cat’s luxurious meal, the woman ordered it sent back and something less extravagant brought instead. A bowl of rice was set before the cat, and the creature was displeased. The woman began applying her makeup as usual, putting floral designs on her face with that gross fish paste glue. The scent of the fish aroused the cat’s appetite, and when at last the husband returned home, he found his wife dead- her face eaten off. From that moment forward the cat had an unearthly, unquenchable taste for blood.

“It’s terrorized others throughout the centuries as well, until a monk trapped the cat in a statue a few centuries ago. It must have moved to Jungkook’s plushie somehow since then.”

“Ah,” Taehyung says slowly. “I see, I think… so, do you know what’s going on down there right now?”

“The cat is technically a physical creature,” Jin says. “It doesn’t have hands, obviously, so it needs physical barriers like doors to be removed for it. So it amassed enough energy to flood the computer room with its ectoplasm of choice- disgusting fish paste- which forced everyone inside to come out or drown. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“I think so,” Taehyung nods.

“The cat also likes music,” Jin says. “Maybe that’s why Orange Caramel wrote a song about it. You know that one My Copycat? ‘Na-na nacheoreom haebwayo’ and then that cute little trumpet sound and everything? They’ve had to contend with the cat in the past, too. I’m not sure how they defeated it though. Or maybe they just wrote the song as a warning. That could be too.”

“Oh, oh really? How is the song a warning?”

“Think of it like this: the first verse is talking is from the perspective of the cat’s prey. ‘To be honest, I’m so frustrated’, and ‘Calling me before you go to bed at twelve,’ and ‘Pushing and pulling sometimes,’ (both of those things happened to Jungkook, remember) and ‘Tonight’s almost over.’ That flute move that they do is, I think, a reference to the fact that you can distract the cat with music. And ‘Shake it like this,’ is, if I had to guess, a reference to the fact that you can distract the cat by waving silk fabric in front of it, like a matador a little bit. The second verse is more from the cat’s perspective.”

“Ne, I think I get it.”

“Of course, it’s all put into the context of a love song, which makes it a bit harder to interpret. The cat hates that song. But it doesn’t quite understand technology yet. It always thinks that Orange Caramel is actually there singing and it goes running to kill them. The song’s a pretty useful tool for anyone with this problem, but they forgot to mention that the cat gets stronger each time it drinks blood. Oh, and did you honestly think you broke down the bathroom door on your own? Aigoo. Sometimes the arrogance of the living is just too much for the undead to handle. Really, the cat just wanted to get in there to lick up Jungkook’s blood while it was still fresh. It _used_ you, don’t you see? Don’t you see at all?”

“Ne, hyung. I can see,” Taehyung says. “And I’ve been seeing, ever since you tried to tell me Jungkook wasn’t worth rescuing since it would all be over in a few hours anyway. I was wondering when you would tell me how you know so much… can you answer that for me?”

Silence falls for a time, then Jin says “Turn on your phone.”

“But the battery’s low.”

“Do it.”

Warily, Taehyung takes his phone out of his pocket and holds down one button until the light comes back on.

“Now turn it toward me, Taehyung.”

Taehyung complies, illuminating Jin’s face in the otherwise solid walls of darkness surrounding them in the attic. At first, Jin is expressionless, but then he smiles wide and broad. His teeth are gaudy, green and pink fangs. He drops the smile, and says “I was the first mouthpiece, before Suga. To conserve energy, the cat gave me my independence back. You might say I’m dormant, in a way.”

“What? I don’t understand? If you’re independent then why… why would you-”

“Why wouldn’t I help you rescue the others downstairs? Simple. Just because I’m dormant doesn’t mean I’m on your side.”

“Then why did you save me?”

“Because the cat likes easy prey,” Jin says. “I know everything the cat knows, and the cat knows everything that I know.”

The severity of this dawns on Taehyung. “So,” he starts. “Does the cat know that I’m here?”

“Absolutely. He’s waiting in the hall directly beneath us.”


	11. Illusion

**3:30 AM (3 ½ Hours Till Sunrise)**

_Stiff-upper lip, Taehyung,_ Tae thinks, then aloud he says, “Okay. Gomabseubnida, hyung. You’ve been very helpful to me.”

“You’re welcome, Tae,” Jin replies.

Taehyung turns away from Jin, letting the light of his dying phone shine all over the room. The attic is narrow and long, like the house, and reveals the steep incline of the roof. Along one side, Taehyung sees a vent protruding through the floor. He walks over and quietly tugs the grille off it, then turns back once to look at Jin, who watches in silence, before lowering himself into the vent without a word.

With every inch he travels, Taehyung struggles with the imagery of J-Hope grinning ghoulishly almost as though he died wearing that expression. Each time Taehyung nears a turn, he pictures J-Hope waiting just on the other side. Or maybe J-Hope is just behind him, about to grab his foot again. The paranoia is just about as much as Taehyung can bear.

“Okay phone,” Taehyung whispers, tapping the screen a few times. “This is where we part ways. You’ve worked hard. With luck, I can work just as hard and find my way back through the dark. I tried to memorize all the turns, but, well, we’ll see. Farewell.” He sets up a timer on the phone, puts it down, and then crawls backward until he reaches a cross-section where he can turn around and continue on.

After about a minute of crawling, music starts playing, carried all over the second floor through the vents. The sound is tinny from here, but upbeat and chipper: My Copycat.

Just then Taehyung reaches the vent-grille positioned above the stairs. For once, perfect timing. He wraps two fingers around one of the bars and dislodges the grille gently. He quickly lowers both feet onto the railing and then drops down onto the stairs from there. The lights are on, but the moment his feet touch the stairs, the lights flicker off.

Bolting down to the first floor, Taehyung runs across the common room toward the back hall, vaulting over the couch entirely, when a force like a freight train hits him in the back of the head.

Taehyung crashes into the ground hard, a splash of red color flaring up where his sight used to be. Gritting his teeth against the tremendous, thundering pain, Taehyung curls up into a ball and waits for another strike, or for his vision to clear, or something.

Priceless seconds tick away into eternity; Taehyung’s pain drains away, and his vision quickly returns, but nothing else changes. Sitting up, he can still hear My Copycat playing through the vents upstairs. Taehyung struggles to his feet and continues with his plan, stumbling onward to the basement door. Yanking it open, he practically flies down the stairs, plunging straight into oppressive darkness.

The only way for Taehyung to tell that he’s reached the bottom of the stairs is by feel- the terrain flattens out, and the handrail ends.

“Annyeonghaseyo?” Taehyung calls. “Is anyone there?”

“V hyung?”

“Jungkook, is that you?”

“Hyung!”

“Stay there,” Taehyung says. “I’ll find you. Just keep talking to me. Are you okay?”

“Ne,” Jungkook says. “I mean, I started bleeding again when I first got dragged down here. But I think it’s stopped since then.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Taehyung says, shuffling toward the sound of Jungkook’s voice slowly. “Tell me what happened.”

“Well, we were in the computer room,” Kookie starts. “When the walls started to drip, like, from the ceiling. It was that rancid, fish paste stuff that my backpack was full of before at the restaurant. It practically exploded through the walls then, like a waterfall. We had to open the door or risk drowning. Of course, we considered whether or not it might be a hallucination like yours in the hallway, hyung. But hallucination or not, in the end we opened the door.”

“What happened then?”

“Then the some of the sunbaenims and Hobi hyung dragged us out and beat us up until we couldn’t fight back anymore. And then they took us down here.”

“Do you know how the others are doing?”

“Suga hyung, Rap Mon hyung, Baekhyun sunbaenim, Kyung soo sunbaenim, Jongin sunbaenim, Taemin sunbaenim, and Xiumin sunbaenim are all unconscious, and Jimin hyung woke up for a little bit, but he passed out again quickly.”

“Do you know where your cat plushie is?”

“It wasn’t in my room?”

“Ani,” Taehyung says harshly. “Where else could it be?”

“I-I don’t know, hyung,” Jungkook says, sounding hurt.

“One last question: what did I bring you when I came back from the kitchen and who was I with?”

“Uh, um,” Jungkook fumbles. “I think you were with sunbaenims Chanyeol and Kyung soo. And you brought water bottles, and the emergency kit. But you took the matchbox out of the kit to burn my plushie, right?”

“Right,” Taehyung says, his voice breaking with relief. “Right, right. You got everything right.” He walks to Jungkook and sinks down to the ground to sit beside him.

“Hyung?” Jungkook starts as Taehyung pulls him into a hug.

“This is better than I could’ve hoped, Jungkookie,” Taehyung says. “Everyone’s alive. We can do this. Let’s… let’s just try and think of a way to get out of here.”

“Ne.”

“Oh, I left my phone behind,” Taehyung says. “Do you happen to, by any chance…”

“Ne,” Jungkook replies. “We started charging our phones in the computer room once you left. I grabbed one when I realized we would have to run. Do you want it?” Jungkook presses the phone into Taehyung’s hand as he talks. Taehyung closes his hand around it and thanks him.

“So, hyung, what’s our plan?”

“We need a nearly foolproof way to completely distract the cat until morning. Can you think of anything? We don’t have any more silk, so…” Taehyung turns on the phone as he talks, and the light of the screen lights up both his face and Jungkook’s.

“Hmm,” Jungkook ponders. “We could all sneak out while you distract the cat with music like you did before.”

“The others aren’t conscious Jungkook. How could they…” Taehyung pauses, a tight feeling in his throat. “Um, say that again, Jungkook?” He meets Jungkook’s eyes.

“I said, we could all sneak out while you distract the cat with music like you did before.”

Taehyung blinks back tears of exhaustion. “Game over, freak.” He stands up, and sneers “How long have you been lying?”

Jungkook smiles sweetly and says “I just wanted to see how far I could push this illusion.” Then his smile widens into a toothy, green and pink grin.

Taehyung’s vision begins to spiral to the side nauseatingly, the world a swirling jumble, until he suddenly finds himself face-down on the floor back in the common room- right in the spot where he fell when he took that blow to the head. Jongin and Taemin hold him in a tight, uncomfortable pin, both arms pulled far behind his back.

The lights are still off, but now they flicker on. In front of the back hall is Jin, and beside him, floating in midair, is a grinning mouth as big as a car tire.

“I never lost control, Kim Taehyung,” Jin says. “You did. You barely got past the stairs let alone escaped my grasp entirely. Did you honestly think your friends were still alive? Those whom you do not see here in this room, I have devoured. _This_ , is the end. _This,_ is ‘game over’. For you anyway.”


	12. Conclusion

**7:13 AM (Sunrise)**

“Look! Look there! That’ EXO’s bus!”

In a white van, EXO’s managers, BTS’s managers, and one of SHINee’s managers pull up the driveway to Bangtan Sonyeondan’s temporary housing.

“Aish, the card scanner is busted,” one of them says upon approaching the front door.

Inside, a manager kicks off his shoes in the mudroom and opens the door to the hall. “Why aren’t these lights on?” He asks himself, then flips the switch, flooding the light fixtures on the ceiling with clean, white light.

They travel down to the next door, and it opens smoothly.

The manager in front gapes, and the one behind him pushes his way to the front to look. “Andwae, no way,” he says. “What happened here?”

**3:45 AM (3 ¼ Hours Till Sunrise)**

_Don’t die, Taehyung_ , Tae tells himself. _Don’t give in. There are people who are still alive… still worth fighting for…_

_Focus, Taehyung! Focus!_

_You’re surrounded, unarmed, and pinned down, not dead. Not dead until you give in. Not yet._

_‘Na-na nacheoreom haebwayo’_

_Oh get that babo song out of your head!_

The cat’s mouth and the invisible cat attached to the mouth begins slinking toward Taehyung. His mind races for an answer, a solution, anything.

_‘Na-na nacheoreom haebwayo’_

_That stupid song!_

The cat fades fully into the visible realm, massive and muscular and built like a rock. It blinks once, revealing coloration on its eyelids that closely resembles its real eyes. Black stripes cover its body, like a tiger’s patterning.

And of course, it never stops grinning.

Its lips are pulled back to the point of looking uncomfortable, painful even, just to show off those frightening incisors.

_‘Nae mameul heundeureo bwayo, oh’_

_Why does this keep coming back to me?_

Now the cat is standing directly above Taehyung. The cat’s breath is so close it makes Taehyung’s bangs flutter.

_The song has to mean something. It can’t just be a warning. It can’t._

The cat opens its jaw wide and leans down over Taehyung’s exposed neck.

No amount of poring over the song changes what Taehyung knows or can do. Catching the cat’s reflection- strong and lean- in the mirror, Taehyung laughs bitterly.

“Either you lost a lot of weight in the spirit world, or this is another illusion,” he says.

The cat freezes.

“Oh?” Jin asks.

Confused, Taehyung looks back and forth from Jin to the cat above him. “I,” he stutters. “I just, in the story, the one you told me, you said the cat ‘grew demanding and fat’ right? …But here, right now, it’s not, so I just thought-”

Taehyung trails off, unnerved by the lifeless stares and coy smiles beaming down on him from every face in the room. Even the cat steps back to watch him.

Jin, still mirroring the cat’s perfectly disturbing smile, says “That’s part of it, Taehyung. There are two more illusions though. But you’re funny and I’ve got time. I’ll give you five minutes.”

Jongin and Taemin yank Taehyung to his feet and step back.

“Wait,” Taehyung starts. “What?” No one answers him, so he sets to thinking.

_Okay Taehyung. You are not going to die. Now think, what did you just do?_

 _“I saw the music video for this song,”_ was it really less than four hours ago that Rap Monster had said that? _“It was cool, like a ‘find the difference thing’.”_

_You found the difference Taehyung. Now find another one._

“The, um, the cat’s teeth?” He says. “They’re, you know, they’re not normal.”

“Wrong,” Jin says. “Four minutes left.”

Seconds tick by.

_Why was that answer wrong? Think! I have to guess again._

“The second illusion, is the cat’s intelligence? Cat’s aren’t that smart.”

Jin nods no. “Three minutes, thirty seconds left.”

_It has to be something Jin hyung specifically mentioned in the story. Specifically mentioned._

“Three minutes left.”

“I’m thinking!”

“I should hope so.”

“The plushie! That’s the illusion! It… oh, oh, wait-”

“Wrong again,” Jin says.

_I knew that!_ Taehyung chastises himself. _Jin hyung told me it was attached to a cat statue by a monk! I need to remember what I know. At the end of the story, what_ was _the cat, and what_ wasn’t _the cat?_ Taehyung starts compiling a mental list: It was fat, it had taste for human blood and a face-fetish, it was small, it was attached to an object- the statue, and it was… alone?

“Two minutes.”

_Ani, ‘alone’ doesn’t work because that’s a circumstance, not a trait._

_New tact. What is the cat now? Focus on that. Right now, the cat is big, not small… it seems like there’s something more to that. It’s big, it’s got multicolored teeth, and it looks like a-_

“Tiger! You’re not a tiger! You’re a cat, but you look like a tiger. A huge one! That’s an illusion for sure.”

“Right,” Jin says. “Sixty seconds left.”

“What?” Taehyung’s pulse races, heart pounding.

_Sixty seconds? I, I can’t! I can’t possibly._

_I’m going to die._

_I can’t figure this out in sixty seconds!_

_I’m going to die!_

“Thirty seconds.”

_Should I run? Where? How!_

Taehyung’s breathing comes in panicked, raggedy inhales.

“Twenty seconds.”

_I’m sorry hyungs. I let this happen._

“Ten.”

_And I’m sorry Jungkook._

“Eight.”

_I wasn’t the real hyung who was supposed to stay and protect you._

“Six.”

_Real…_

“Four, three, two, one,” Jin pauses. “Cheshire cat says time’s up.”

Taehyung closes his eyes and listens to the soft sweeping sound the cat makes as it backs up, then the pounding sound of a running charge.

_That’s it._

“You’re not dead!” Taehyung shouts, eyes still clamped closed.

At first, he doesn’t dare look, but when the silence goes unchallenged for some time outside of the heartbeat ringing in his ears, Taehyung takes a risk and opens his eyes.

He’s staring into the cat’s mouth.

Taehyung’s own jaw drops, and though he tries to will his feet to step back, he’s iron-welded to the spot.

“Explain,” Jin says.

_Did I do it?_ Taehyung wonders. Taking a deep breath, he begins steadily.

“You said it yourself, hyung. You said that the cat needs physical barriers, like doors, removed for it. That’s true. Everyone here can see that. Everyone here can hear its paws on the floor. When it was breathing near me, it ruffled my hair. When it attacked Jungkook, it made him bleed. When it attacked me it made me bleed. And even at the end of the story you told me, you never said it died… maybe its bloodlust turned it into something else, and maybe that thing isn’t exactly alive, but it isn’t dead. You tried to mislead me by saying ‘the undead’ but you didn’t specifically call the cat ‘undead’. Right?”

After a moment, the cat steps back, then turns and walks away, plopping itself down on the floor in the corner.

“That’s correct,” Jin says.

“What,” Taehyung starts, watching the cat warily. “What is it doing?”

“I must now do to me what I have done to you.”

This initially confuses Taehyung, but the intent becomes all too clear when the cat bites a chunk out of its own arm.

“Ow,” Jin monotones. “Ow… ow… ow…”

Trying not to puke, Taehyung looks away and plugs his ears so hard that both his ears and the fingers plugging them go numb.

“Ow… ow… ow…”

But the revolting sound breaks through anyway, sloshing around inside Taehyung’s head.

“Ow…”

**4:30 AM (2 ½ Hours Till Sunrise)**

Taehyung is on the verge of insanity by the time it ends. Everyone around him collapses simultaneously, and the thud they make hitting the ground jolts him enough to open his eyes and look around. No one is left standing, but they appear to be breathing all the same.

Over in the corner where the cat had been, there is now a small puddle of sludge. Taehyung sinks to the ground slowly. His head falls into his hands, and that’s where he stays for quite some time.


	13. Listen

**7:13 AM (Sunrise)**

“Andwae,” one manager says. “What happened here?” He starts laughing. “Did they all drink themselves to sleep?”

Across every couch and chair, even the coffee table and the floor, the boys are spread out and fast asleep: Jin, Yoongi, Nam Joon, J-Hope, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook, Jongin, Kyung Soo, Xiumin, Chanyeol, Baekhhyun, and Taemin; the early morning sun washes a soft yellow glow over them.

**4:45 AM (2 ¼ Hours Till Sunrise)**

Lost in his own world of horrors, Taehyung doesn’t even hear the door to the second manager’s room open.

“…that or we were all just having the same nightmare,” one voice says- it’s Jimin.

“What’s everyone doing asleep?” Taemin asks.

“Ya!” Jungkookie cries. “Jin hyung! Wake up!”

“Hoseok? Are you okay?”

The room grows slowly noisier as people start waking up. Taehyung hears a little cough beside him, and then feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Tae?”

Taehyung looks up. “Yoongi hyung?”

Suga smiles and uses his free hand to give Taehyung a gentle pat on the back. “You’ve worked hard,” he says.

**5 AM (2 Hours Till Sunrise)**

“So, Jin hyung,” Rap Mon starts. “You know more than the rest of us, so do you have any idea how we’re all in one piece again?”

“I remember being eaten,” Jimin says, a shaken, far-off look in his eyes. J-Hope, sitting beside him on the couch, gives him a nudge and catches his eye. J-Hope smiles, and Jimin manages to return it.

Jin answers Rap Mon’s question. “As long as the cat was contained or killed before sunrise, any and all damage it caused would be undone. At sunrise it’s contained within its vessel again- Jungkook’s plushie in this case- and from that point on the damage it’s done is permanent.”

“Speaking of that plushie,” Jongin starts. “Do you think it’s still around? Should we destroy it like we meant to in the beginning?”

“I would,” Chanyeol says. “Just to be safe.”

“That’s in Jungkook’s room,” Suga says. “I remember distinctly what the cat did. It used an illusion to make the cat plushie look like the carrot one. Honestly that’s… pretty smart.”

They go upstairs to Jungkook’s room as a group. For a moment, they can only stare at the somewhat ooze-covered doll. Then Kyung Soo steps forward, picks it up, and holds it out for everyone to see.

“Burn it?” He asks.

There are a few nods of the head and “Ne”s. Then they take it back downstairs to the electric fireplace. Rap Mon hits the wall switch that turns the fireplace on. Baekhyun opens the glass door, and Kyung Soo throws the plushie in. It bursts instantly into flames, slowly eaten away by fire.

“I didn’t like it anyway,” Jungkook says.

They talk and relate stories and experiences for another hour, easing the tension slowly and with a little help from some soju. One by one they drop off to sleep, exhausted, tipsy, and relaxed by each other’s presences.

All but Taehyung.

Although his injuries are gone, it’s as though they still cause him pain when he forgets to remind himself that they disappeared along with the cat. The smell of rancid fish paste won’t leave his nose. The image of J-Hope as a grinning zombie popping out of a vent refuses to vanish.

He gets up from his chair, the fire still crackling away and casting its warm light on the common room. Walking down the back hall, he stops in front of the one door that he’s never opened: is it the basement of his nightmares? Or a simple closet?

Taking the doorknob in one hand, he twists and pulls. A few towels, a couple bars of soap, and one bottle of shampoo. Definitely just a simple closet.

With a sigh, Taehyung shuts the door and walks back to the common room. He flops back down in his chair and stares at the reflection in the window created by the firelight. Nothing lurking in the shadows, nothing smiling at him demonically.

It seems to Taehyung that a master of illusions such as the Cheshire cat shouldn’t have been such an easy match. Could it really be dead and gone? Just like that? He goes over to the couch and shoves someone over to make space for himself, then plops down and snuggles into a hyung. But even so, one thing continues to keep him sleepless: he can’t get the subtle, pitter-patter sound of scurrying little paw-pads out of his head.

THE END


End file.
